I mentioned earlier that I helped co-lead a Women’s Retreat a couple of weeks ago. One of my co-leaders was a lady named Rachel who, along with her husband, work at a ministry called Crosspoint of India. One of the things they do at Crosspoint is use the making of handicrafts to support the varied ministry going on – including an orphanage, Bible college and tailor training school.

Some of the handicrafts they make were given out as welcome bags at the retreat. If you’re looking for a unique gift, cards with Indian pictures/prints, Christmas ornaments, or a funky laptop bag made from an Indian sari – check out the Items they Produce on their site!

On Day Fourteen of the “Thirty Day Thankfulness Challenge”, the assignment was to stop periodically throughout the day and read a Psalm. I thought it would be a bit obnoxious (not the reading God’s Word part, of course, the stopping throughout the day part), but I’d committed to the whole challenge, so I had to do this one.

I programmed my phone alarm to ring a reminder every two hours and gave each reminder a particular Psalm. Some of my choices had a reason behind them, others were random.

The first thing I noticed is that two hours is actually a long time! Long enough, anyway, for me to get caught up in something – some worry or stress or frustration. Long enough for me to need a reminder to re-orientate my heart (again…).

I hadn’t picked any of the really long Psalms. It took maybe five minutes to read it through slowly once or twice. Then I’d go back to whatever I was doing.

It was a lovely exercise and one I’m planning on doing again. Twice during the day, one of the Psalms I’d chosen was simply the most appropriate reminder I could’ve gotten at that moment. It challenged me, encouraged me, and restored my joy. That’s what God’s Word does regularly. So maybe the power in this was just that His Word was given a bigger chance to inform my day.

I highly recommend it! Pick a day – no need for it to be special – I’ll bet this is most encouraging when you’re in the middle of a hectic, crazy day. Set reminder alarms on your phone/iPod/computer (because if you don’t, I guarantee you’ll forget) to go off every few hours and decide ahead of time which Psalm you’ll read (are you jumping around or just going to read a certain section of five that day?).

After you try this, post back and tell us which Psalms you read and how the day went.